On The Outskirts
by Vector Z
Summary: It's not every day you wake up to find your school floating in the digital void, with dozens of flying saucers full of hostile monsters bent on destroying you coming your way.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 1: Evil Minds are Never Idle

Deep in the uncharted backwaters of cyberspace, there is a group of small, insignificant looking landmasses. The uninhabited mountains, glaciers, forests, deserts, and central sphere of this place, known collectively as Lyoko, are far off from the rest of virtual civilization, and known to none but a small group of kids from an alternate universe.

But from this isolated place there would one day arise a great evil, one that would one day threaten all of virtual civilization, as well as the heroes that would come to stop it. This day has not happened yet.

At present that evil entity, was well, for lack of a better word, bored. Xana paced about his complex deep in the bowels of Sector 5. He walked by the gigantic monster hives, his minions bowing to him as he went by. But Xana paid no attention to them.

Xana had long ago created a virtual form for himself on Lyoko, but the kids had never met him in person. He was a tall, somewhat muscular humanoid, dressed in long, flowing black robes and a metal helmet that contained plenty of computerized inner workings. He sulked, banging his metal staff's glass ball on the walls of the hives he passed, eventually coming to the big door that separated his quarters from the great room with the monster hives.

Inside, he walked past the creeper guards posted at the door, past the throne on the raised dais, and to the door on the far wall, which he flung open unceremoniously. The room beyond was his private control room, an exact copy of the lab on earth. He seated himself at the controls and booted the computer up, determined to find something to do before he went crazy.

Perhaps you are wondering what an evil supercomputer does with its spare time. Well, to be honest, Xana does the same things any human would. He reads online newspapers and books. He watches TV. He goes into internet chat rooms to talk to the people there, and the humans on the other end have no idea that the person they are talking to is a computer. But Xana does not do these sorts of things for the same reasons you would. Whereas the human primary goal is entertainment, Xana is driven by a desire to learn more about his self-declared enemies.

And sometimes what he finds gives him very good ideas. On this particular Wednesday, Xana found an old horror movie on the internet. It was about a group of space explorers who get stranded in a distant galaxy when their spaceship ran out of gas. They had to fend off hordes of flesh-eating aliens while simultaneously trying to figure out how in the world they were going to get home. The movie ended with all the main characters getting eaten.

The movie had horrible special effects, acting, and plot, but it interested Xana anyway, particularly what happened to the heroes at the end. So Xana, with the kernel of an idea of what horrible plan he was going to put into action next, started to do what he liked best; he plotted.

Determining that actually launching the kids into outer space was impossible, Xana had to refine the idea a little. He drew up some calculations on the amount of power he needed, saw that he didn't have enough, decided to cheat a little to get enough, and started the necessary programming. He called forth on his specters to get ready to go on the offensive, and finally, fingers twitching a little, he pressed the big red button next to the keyboard.

With the push of that button, one of Lyoko's forty towers began to light up. Using the little "cheat code" Xana had made for himself, Xana was able to press the button again, and again, and again, winding up with a total of five activated towers. He had used this trick once before, but instead of being decoys, these five towers would actually be programmed with deadly data.

In his computer room, Xana watched a small wire frame of Odd appear on the screen and start to fill up with blue. The same thing happened with Ulrich. Then Yumi. In fifteen seconds, at least a hundred filling wire frames filled the screen. And more were still appearing.

The students and faculty of Kadic Academy, sleeping peacefully in their dorm rooms at the current late hour, never saw the specters flowing out of the street lamps around the school. The hundreds of specters merged into a hollow cylinder ten stories high around the school grounds, complete with a circular ceiling. The inside walls began to glow brightly, and with a flash of pure energy, the school and the specters were gone, leaving nothing but a wide swath of barren dirt behind.

-------------------------

And there you have it. All reviews are welcome. I will continue soon.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Just Where, Exactly, are We? 

beep-beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep

Odd reached out with his tail and pushed down the button on the alarm clock to make it stop ringing. He sat up slowly in bed. He did not notice anything strange about what he had just done, since he had spent half the night playing video games and was still very, very groggy. He gave out a big yawn, and then looked down.

"That's funny." He said to himself through half closed eyes. "I don't remember going to bed in my Lyoko outfit."  
He changed into some regular clothes and went down to the bathroom to splash some water on his face. It woke him up, and looking around, he sensed that something very strange was going on. At first he couldn't place it. But after examining his surroundings for a little while, he concluded that the reason everything looked so strange was that everything had computer-generated graphics. Also he had a tail.  
"Urgh. Looks like today is going to be a real problem."

He rushed back to his dorm room, and saw his Lyoko outfit on the bed where he had left it. He also saw Ulrich, still asleep, a familiar yellow headband tied around his head.  
"Ulrich, wake up!" Said Odd, shaking him.  
Ulrich, taken by surprise, instinctively reached under the covers and whipped his sword in Odd's face.  
"Hey! Ulrich! Its only me!" Exclaimed Odd.  
"Wha?" Said Ulrich, looking at the sword. "Odd, what's going on?"  
"I'm not sure. Just look around you. C'mon! Change into something less conspicuous and then we'll go talk to Jeremie."

Jeremie was still sound asleep. He, like Odd, had spent half the night awake, but he had been doing something useful rather than playing video games. Unfortunately, this meant that he hadn't heard so much of a beep of the computer's tower activation alarm. Odd and Ulrich bursting into the room did wake him up, however.  
"Odd? Ulrich? What's going on?" Jeremie said groggily. He looked at the computer, which was where Odd and Ulrich were looking, and shook himself awake.

"Oh no!" Jeremie said, seating himself at the computer. "Five activated towers." He turned to Odd and Ulrich for an explanation of what the attack might be, but stopped short to notice the computerized nature of the objects and people around him.  
"I don't know exactly what Xana's up to, but it can't be good. Lets get Aelita and call Yumi to meet us at the factory."

Aelita was already awake. She also had awoken in her Lyoko outfit, but she had already changed and was about to leave the room when Jeremie knocked. She opened the door to find the three of them standing there.  
"Xana's attacking, isn't he?" Said Aelita, reading the familiar expressions on their faces. The four of them rushed down the hallway, hearing the gasps and cries and occasional screams coming from the awakening students as they looked at their surroundings. Ulrich took out his cell phone and called Yumi.

Yumi did not answer right away. She was watching the news broadcast with her family, openmouthed.  
"The latest breaking news today." Said the announcer, "Is the total, inexplicable disappearance of Kadic Academy. Where once there were buildings, trees, and people, including over 200 children, there is nothing but a wide, circular expanse of barren dirt. Explanations ranging from a strange, new terrorist device to abduction by aliens have been produced, but as of now, the fate of the 238 students and faculty who live on-campus remains uncertain."

The TV screen showed the camera view from a helicopter, showing clearly the neat devastation that had taken place.  
"Yumi," Said her mom, slowly. "You're not going to school today."  
"We have to get to the bottom of this." Said her dad angrily. "Let's head downtown."  
"Take care of Hiroki, will you, dear?" With that, Yumi's parents rushed out the door.

It was then that the phone rang. She answered it, afraid of who or what she would hear on the other end, certain that Xana was behind the school's disappearance. But she was relieved to hear Ulrich's voice.  
"Yumi! Xana's attacking. Meet us at the factory, okay?"  
"That's what I thought. Where are you?"  
"At school. We're almost out of the dormitory building. Why?"  
"What! Ulrich! You can't be at school! The school has disappeared!"  
"What?"  
"They were talking about it on the news. The entire complex has disappeared!"  
"But if the school's disappeared," Said Ulrich as they neared the exit, "Then where are we?"

They burst out of the doors of the dormitory building, and gasped at what they saw. They saw the other buildings and trees that had always been there, and they saw other students whispering excitedly and worriedly, but the kids' expressions turned to horror when they saw the sky. It was filled with the eerie floating translucent blue screens of the digital void.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: On the Outskirts 

Jeremie, Odd, Aelita, and Ulrich walked slowly across the school grounds, finding it hard to keep their eyes off the void above them. When they reached the path that led to the park, they found simply... an edge. The ground simply stopped, a cliff leading over the edge to oblivion. They followed the edge in a complete circle around the school, arriving back at their original starting point.

"Looks like Xana has gone and created a real whopper of an attack." Said Jeremie. "He's virtualized the school and everyone in it onto an isolated landmass in the digital void." Ulrich relayed this information to Yumi over the cell phone.  
"Jeremie, look at that!" Said Aelita, pointing into the sky.

The drifting island the school was on had drifted into view of what looked like a gigantic multicolored four-leaf clover that filled up half the sky. They could just make up the large blue sphere that made up its center, and they guessed as to what they were seeing.  
"Xana's isolated us in the void, on the outskirts of Lyoko." Ulrich said to Yumi, telling her about seeing Lyoko from far off. "Yumi, stay at home until we figure out how to escape. We'll meet you at the factory later."  
"Ok, Ulrich, but how are you going to escape?"  
"I don't know. Jeremie will figure something out."  
"Ok. Be safe." Yumi hung up.

"Well Einstein, got any ideas to get us out of this mess?" Said Ulrich to Jeremie as the four of them walked back into Jeremie's dorm room.  
"Why don't we just attack each other with our weapons?" Asked Odd. "We'll devirtualize, and then we can get revirtualized back to where the towers are. And Jeremie can program a vehicle so that one of us can fly out to the school and pick up Aelita."  
"I don't know, Odd." Said Jeremie. "I don't think Xana would leave open such an obvious escape route. I'll do a test first, to see if its safe."  
"What do you mean 'a test'?"

Jeremie went over to the computer and picked up a pencil that was lying nearby. He started typing into the computer, and then laid the pencil on the table in front of them. It began to lose its virtual "skin", as it flaked off in small, sheet-like squares. For a moment, a white wire-frame remained underneath, and then it disappeared. The computer screen lit up with a big flashing red exclamation point.

"Just as I thought." Said Jeremie. "We're out of range of the scanners. Out here, there's no way to get rematerialized in the real world."  
"Then how the heck do we get out of here?" Exclaimed Odd.  
Jeremie looked glumly at them, unsure of what to do.  
"Hey, Jeremie," Said Aelita. "If you can devirtualize things from here, then why can't you do the reverse? Can you program our vehicles from here? Because if you can, then we can fly to Lyoko from the school."  
"Good idea." Said Jeremie, thoughtfully. He turned back to the computer and started typing furiously.

"Umm..." He said. "This may take a few hours actually. Sorry, guys."  
"A few hours!" Exclaimed Ulrich. "The entire school must be freaking out by now! We have to fix this as soon as possible!"  
"I'll see what I can do to speed things up. In the meantime, if Xana isn't going to do anything more dangerous than strand us here, time isn't going to be a big issue."  
"Your attention please." Said the loudspeaker in the hallway, startling them all. "There is an emergency meeting in the gym for all students happening right now. Please do not be afraid to cross the school grounds, but do not approach the edges of the property. That is all."  
"You guys go there." Said Jeremie. "They may need you to explain things. I'll stay here and work on this."

Meanwhile, Yumi was sitting alone in the living room for her parents to come back. She could hear Hiroki playing in his bedroom. Usually he would be going to the local elementary school, but authorities had told all families in the city not to send their kids for fear of more school disappearances. She decided to call Ulrich back, to see what was happening. But when she dialed, she only got a recorded message saying that the phone she had dialed was registering "no service".

"That's weird." She said to herself. "It was working fine a little while ago."  
She decided to let some light into the room, so she opened the shades on one of the windows. But instead of the view of the street, she saw only swirling blackness outside.  
"What?" She cried. She burst out the door of the house, and standing on the doorstep, she realized that the entire house was encased in a cylinder of specters.  
"Looks like Xana isn't going to be letting me out of the trap he set for the others"  
There was a flash of light, and the house and its two occupants disappeared.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Get out of the Gymnasium! 

Milly and Tamiya were crossing the field to get to the gym. Milly was holding on tightly to Tamiya's arm, scared that if she walked too fast she would simply float away into the endless oblivion above them. But the landmass they were on had too much gravity for that to happen, as a certain house was about to find out.

The two girls watched in silent amazement as the outline of Yumi's house started to appear over the soccer field, began to fill blue, turned the right colors, and then fell twenty feet to the ground with a crash. Milly and Tamiya covered their ears as a small cloud of dust and plaster rose from the landing site. Inside, Yumi coughed and waved away the smoke.

"Hiroki!" She called. "Are you okay?"  
"I'm fine, Yumi!" He called out from his room. Yumi cleared away the fallen debris to get to her brother and then took him down to the living room.  
"Nice costume! Where'd you get it?"  
"Umm.." She looked down at herself. "I must be virtual." She muttered to herself. "Hold on, Hiroki, I'll be right back."

She went back up to her room to get some normal clothes, then led Hiroki outside.  
"Yumi?" Said Milly. "Where'd you come from?"  
"Long story." She said in reply. "What's going on?"  
"The school's in outer space, or something like that." Said Tamiya. "The principal's called a meeting in the gym. You should come with us."

Meanwhile, Ulrich, Odd, and Aelita were already there. The students around them were exchanging excited, worried, and mostly panicked whispers.  
"Quiet down, quiet down." Said Mr. Delmas, stepping up to the podium. "As you all know, some otherworldly force seems to have catapulted us into some alternate dimension. But I advise you not to panic, as I am sure that rescue is forthcoming, and we have enough emergency stores at the school to last us several weeks until that happens." The principal didn't seem too sure of himself, despite his words.

The principal continued speaking, but Ulrich and the others were no longer paying attention, as Yumi had just walked into the gym with Hiroki, Tamiya, and Milly. She sat down next to Ulrich.  
"Xana virtualized my house." She said.  
"Where are your parents?" Asked Ulrich.  
"They went out. They're going to freak out when they see that we're gone." She buried her face in her arms, and Ulrich put his arm around her to comfort her.

"So I ask you to please go back to your- what was that?" The principal said. He and everybody else in the gym had heard it too- a low rumbling that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Suddenly, a huge oblong shape crossed the windows at the far end of the gym.  
"Jim. Come with me." Mr. Delmas beckoned. "We have to see what is going on."

They carefully opened the back door to the gym and stepped out, scanning the sky with their eyes and ears. But they were looking in the wrong direction. The shape flew out from beyond the edge of the ground, revealing itself as a green disk as least as big around as Yumi's house. The eye of Xanawas printed on the flying saucer's top, and the bottom had eight small squares that, as Jim and Mr. Delmas stared at, opened up, revealing long black cylinders. They pointed at the building they had just left, and began to light up.

Jim and Mr. Delmas burst back through the doors.  
"Everyone out of the gymnasium! NOW!" He shouted.  
There was a wave of human bodies as everyone in the gym stampeded for the exits.  
"What's going on?" Shouted Yumi. It was that moment that one of the UFO's laser cannons fired, blasting a gigantic hole in the roof., raining bits of ceiling down on the kids inside.

Jeremie felt the aftershock of the explosion up in his dormitory room. Looking out the window, he was surprised to see the crowd of students fleeing the gymnasium building. He was even more surprised to see Yumi's house resting on the soccer field, and even more surprised to see the enormous UFO metholodically blasting the gym to bits.

"Jeremie," Said Odd, bursting into the room with the others. "We've got a problem!"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Attack of the Flying Saucers 

"YAHHHHHH!" Sissi screamed, fleeing for her life. A massive blast hit the ground where she had been just seconds before, leaving a crater several meters across. All eyes were fixed on the green disk floating through the air, raining laser fire down to the ground. No one noticed Jeremie, Yumi, Aelita, Odd, and Ulrich running out of the dormitory building, towards the main academic building.

"So Einstein! You got a plan?" Shouted Odd over the din.  
"As a matter of fact, yes. Just follow me. I'll explain when we get there."  
They ran up the stairs to the roof, where they had a good vantage point of the rest of the school. Jeremie went over to the tower that held the school's antenna. They hadn't been up there since the time Xana took control of the satellite through the kids' cell phones.

Looking over the various wires leading from the dish to the fuse box at the base of the tower, Jeremie plugged in his laptop and began typing.  
"Jeremie, what are you doing?" Asked Ulrich.  
"Well, this antenna is made to accept and give out radio waves. But if I can increase the frequency of waves it gives out, eventually they won't be radio waves any more, and if I can increase it enough, I can make it give out a concentrated ray of visible light."  
"In English, please."  
"Well, I'm going to make it shoot a laser beam at the UFO. I need you guys to get up there and move the dish into position so that its aiming at the ship."  
"Got it covered." Said Yumi. She, Odd, Ulrich, and Aelita climbed the tower and, with great difficulty, pushed the dish so that it was aiming at the saucer. Jeremie pushed the enter key. At first, it looked like nothing was happening, but then the little stick in the center started to glow white hot. A few seconds later, a beam of white light erupted from the antenna, slamming into the ship at the speed, of, well, light.

The beam went out the other side of the ship, and a moment later the ship exploded in a large fireball. The debris flashed and disappeared before they hit the ground. The students, hearing the explosion, turned around to see that their pursuer had been blown up, and after a moment of stunned silence, started cheering. But they had not seen what exactly, made the UFO explode.

----------

Aelita looked out at the school grounds. The paths and fields were pockmarked with blasts, and the gym had a huge hole in the roof. The dish had not been able to handle the energy it had emitted, and had melted.  
"Looks like if we ever get out of this, we need to return to the past." She said.  
"Well, yeah, I mean, even before that we needed to. Everyone would be questioning later just where we were." Said Ulrich.  
"Oh yeah." She said thoughtfully. "So why are we staying up here?"  
"Its a good lookout point to see if Xana is sending any more spaceships. But how we're going to fight them without that dish?"  
"I don't really know." Said Jeremie. "I suppose I'll think of something. But in the meantime, I have to continue programming the program that will allow me to materialize the vehicles from here." He was already hard at work.

Down on the school grounds, the teachers, still dazed from the attack, were making a half-hearted effort to put things back in order. Many of the students were standing around or staring up at the sky, as if expecting more flying saucers to come flying out of the void at any time.

Unfortunately, their fears were not unfounded. Deep in Sector 5, Xana had watched the whole thing from his chamber.  
"Hmm.. So they were able to defeat my spaceship. Well, they will not fare so well against two." He said to himself. "Lieutenant!" He shouted.

A Blok scuttled into the room and made a stiff bow.  
"Board the ships. And prepare to make a landing when you get there." He said. The Blok bowed again and scuttled out of the room. Outside, twenty more Bloks and five Krabes were waiting. They followed the Lieutenant to a large chamber that bordered the outer sphere of Sector 5, where several more of the recently constructed green saucers were waiting. They entered through hatches in the side of each ship, and when they were all boarded, the two saucers took off through a wide door in the wall that led to the celestial dome outside. They shot out of Lyoko, heading for the small floating island that was the school.

-----------------

Yumi was the first one to see them.  
"Look! Over there!" She shouted. The green specks had appeared from the direction of Lyoko, and were moving rapidly towards them. The kids down on the ground noticed them too, and the panic started all over again as they ran for shelter.  
"No! Not indoors, I tell you! Not indoors!" Shouted Mr. Delmas. Nobody listened to him.

The first of the flying saucers flew over the roof they were standing on, and stopped there. A large hatch surrounded by the smaller hatches opened up, and five of the Bloks jumped down, making the roof shake slightly.  
"Uh oh." Said Jeremie.  
"No sweat." Said Odd. "We're experts at this sort of thing." He took aim, but then noticed that there was nothing on his hands.  
"Oops." He said, a little embarrassed and a little afraid.  
They had left their weapons back in their rooms.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: The aliens? 

"DUCK!" Shouted Odd. Ulrich did so, as a laser from one of the Bloks whizzed over his head. "C'mon!" Shouted Ulrich to the others. "This way!"  
Jeremie, Aelita, Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi ran back towards the rooftop door, lasers firing after them. They ran through the doorway. Aelita shut and locked it after them.  
"That isn't going to hold very long Aelita." Said Jeremie.  
"I know." She replied.

They dashed down the stairwell, while one of the Bloks shattered the door with a laser. But they were confronted with a problem. The stairs were built for humans, not walking cubes. Nevertheless, the five Bloks started down after them, but they didn't get far before they tripped and started sliding and bouncing down the stairs instead. At the first landing, one of them slid into the wall with a crash and blew up. The other four landed on their feet, and started down the second flight, much more carefully. But it would be a while before they caught up.

The kids pushed their way out of the building, looking around carefully. There were no other monsters in sight.  
"Do you think there are more of them?" Asked Yumi.  
"I hope not. But I also wouldn't count on there not being any more." Said Jeremie.  
They started sneaking back towards the dormitories. They didn't see any monsters, but that was because they were all in the other courtyard, shooting at the other kids.

The students were hiding behind the columns and the lunchrooms, trying to avoid the laser fire from the rest of the Bloks and the five Krabes. One of the Krabes was backing William into a corner.  
"Stay back!" He shouted, stuttering a little. The Krabe didn't listen to him, and prepared to fire. William, in a desperate move, hurled a rock at the Krabe. It bounced off the monster's armor. He picked up a larger, sharper one, and hurled it higher so that it arced a little and then landed, pointy side down, into the center of the target on its back. It was a lucky shot, but it had the desired effect. The Krabe stumbled back, and blew apart.

William stood there, stunned at what he had just done. But then he scowled, picked the rock up again, and threw it at one of the Bloks, and another monster bit the dust. The monsters, turning to face this new threat, started firing again, and he was only able to dive out of the way in the nick of time.  
"Don't just stand there! Help me out here!" He shouted at the rest of the kids. Hesitatingly, one picked up a small stone and threw it. It bounced off the armor of the monster it hit.  
"Hit them in that target thing! That's the alien's weak spot!"

When they heard the word "aliens", many of the kids started to perk up. They had been unsure of what was going on at first, but what William had said made sense, seeing as these creatures had come from the flying saucers, which had dropped them off and then disappeared. Soon, they were rushing out of hiding, throwing anything and everything they could. The monster's lasers were obviously superior weapons, but they didn't stand against the angry mob that was forming, and far outnumbering them.

The Bloks started to retreat, but there was nowhere to run; they were just as stranded in the school as the kids were without the spaceships to pick them up. Under the storm of projectiles, they fell one by one, until there was nothing left but debris.

"Here we are!" Said Odd, as he and Ulrich entered their room. Odd grabbed his gloves and put them on, while Ulrich got his sword.  
"Ready to kick some monsters?" Said Ulrich.  
"You bet!" Said Odd.  
They went back out, where Jeremie, Aelita, and Yumi were waiting for them. They had already taken a detour to Yumi's house to get her fans and to make sure Hiroki was safe where he was.  
"Lets go." Said Yumi. "Jeremie, stay here to work on the vehicles."  
"Got it."

They ran down to the courtyard, where they saw a strange sight. The other students were dragging pieces of debris and forming them into walls, while others were stockpiling large, sharp rocks picked up from the sides of the paths.  
"What's going on?" Yumi asked William.  
"We had a fight with the aliens. we're preparing for their next attack."  
"Where are they now?"  
"We destroyed the first group that came, but there are probably mo-"

He was interrupted by a massive blast that came from the sky, blasting a hole in the side of one of the buildings. The flying saucers were back, and when the hatches on the bottoms of the ships opened up, they realized that more monsters were on the way. They started dropping down, and this time there were far more.  
"Looks like you could use our help." Said Odd. He fired a laser arrow straight into the waiting target of a frelion.  
"Where'd you get that?" Said William.  
"Long story, and I don't feel like talking about it right now."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: The Vehicles are Ready 

When the second wave of monsters was dropped from the UFOs, the students fought back with extraordinary zeal. But even as the monsters fell, more came to replace them, and as they slowly shot to pieces the defenses they had put up, it became clear that they were fighting a losing battle.

With the safety they had built for themselves crumbling and the piles of rocks diminishing, many of the students took to hiding behind the decaying walls of debris, fearing for their lives, instead of continuing to fight. And Sissi's encouragement, while a good intention, was not helping.  
"C'mon, you!" She shouted at a huddled group. "Are you pathetic losers going to stay there and let those ugly aliens walk all over us? Are you!"  
"Sissi," Said Odd, who was standing near her, firing at monsters, "I think they might be a little more encouraged if you don't insult them."  
"Shut your mouth!" She retorted. "William, do you know where we can get more rocks?"  
"Umm.." Said William, uncertainly.  
"I'll get them." Said Yumi. She put her hands to her head, and her entire body took on a soft, white aura.

The rocks that had already been hurled and were lying strewn about the courtyard rose up into the air, and started flying back towards where they were, many of them flying right through monsters in the process. They settled back into the piles they had made.  
"Whoa." Said William, wide-eyed. "I didn't know you could do telekinesis."  
"Only here in cyberspace."  
"Wait. How do you know we're in cyberspace?"  
"Ummm..." Yumi said, a little afraid that she may have said a little too much. "Ummm... I'd better go help Ulrich! Be back later!"

Ulrich was in front of the walls the kids were hiding behind, deflecting lasers away from the other kids with his sword. He smiled and nodded when Yumi ran up next to him and started using her fans to block the lasers along with him. William and Sissi, watching them, were clearly impressed.  
"You'd think they had done this together before." Said William. "And those weapons look like they were designed with defeating those aliens in mind."  
"You sound jealous." Said Sissi, mockingly. "And its not of their skill, either."  
"Don't you start. I can see you're jealous too." This made Sissi turn bright red.

Odd get out his cell phone and held it to his ear with one hand while firing arrows with the other. He called Jeremie, who was still in the dorm room.  
"Jeremie! Things are getting really hot around here! Are you almost done with those vehicles? Because they could really help down here!"  
"They're almost ready, Odd. Just a few more codes."  
"Ok. keep us posted." He hung up, and then ducked to avoid a laser. He fired back, destroying the kankrelat that fired it.

It was then though that the two flying saucers came back, with a fresh load of monsters to unload and packing the heavy artillery. Two megatanks rolled into position, and then fired their elliptical lasers, resulting in two neat gashes in the walls that the kids had built.  
"We're never going to make it!" Yumi shouted to the others behind the walls.  
"Wait!" Shouted Aelita, who had been up to this point been throwing rocks with the other kids. "I've got an idea!"

Aelita dropped to her knees, closed her eyes, and let out a long, high note. The monsters' half of the courtyard began to disappear, as it lost color, turned transparent, and then the terrain grid underneath disappeared. This, unfortunately for the monsters, left a good number of them without any ground to stand on. They plummeted downward into the void, screeching all the way.

"Nice going, Aelita." Said Ulrich. "But that is most certainly not the last of them." Ulrich was right. The monsters which had not fallen into the hole were regrouping, and starting to fire again. But they weren't going to be firing for very long.  
Odd's cell phone rang, and he picked it up.  
"Odd!" Said Jeremie on the other side. "I've done it! The vehicles should be materializing behind you right now. Hold on down there, I'm coming to meet you."

"Guys!" Shouted Odd to Ulrich and Yumi. "Lets go! The vehicles are ready!" Yumi and Ulrich ran back behind the walls, and hopped on. The three of them flew up into the air and started attacking the monsters from above. They were totally unprepared for the attack, and were soon all gone except for a single kankrelat. It turned and ran, only to be kicked over by Tamiya, who then picked it up and banged it repeatedly against a tree until it was scrap.

The schoolyard was quiet. Until some hurried footsteps and panting sounded, and Jeremie ran outside.  
"Did we win?" Asked Jeremie.  
"And where were you?" Asked William, a little angrily. "We were fighting for our lives out here!"  
"I was... um.. I was.." Jeremie never got to finish the excuse. At that moment, a laser blast fired from the sky, and blasted the section of dormitories Jeremie had been a few minutes earlier into a fiery wreck.

"The flying saucers are back!" Someone cried, pointing into the sky.  
The cannons on one of the two saucers powered up again, letting loose a blast that smashed through the roof of the administrative building. The teachers of the school had been totally unaware of the battle that had been just fought outside, and had been spending the entire time doing various things with a telephone, a computer, and a TV set in an attempt to contact someone from Earth. Their efforts had not been entirely unsuccessful; their SOS calls had been coming out of the supercomputer's speakers, but of course there was no one there to hear them.

Now they were running out of the building, coughing on the smoke.  
"Do you think that there are more monsters inside the saucers?" Asked Yumi.  
"Probably." Said Ulrich. "But given the fact that we beat all the monsters they sent down earlier, they're probably going to stick with firing down from the sky, where its safe. Jeremie, do you have any bright ideas?"  
"I do!" Shouted Odd. He jumped on the overboard and took off, heading straight for the saucers, while the kids and teachers on the ground watched in disbelief.  
"Hey..." Said Mrs. Hertz. "Where'd he get the flying surfboard?"

"Odd!" Shouted Ulrich. "Have you gone completely bananas?"  
Odd flew directly up to one of the saucers. He found a window on one side.  
Peering in, he saw an unfamiliar humanoid monster- an automaton- sitting at a control panel. He waved to it.  
"Hi there!" He said. "Catch me if you can!"  
He flew upwards, and the cannons turned to follow him. They shot through the air at him, but it was like trying to kill a fly with a shotgun. He flew around the ship in circles, and then flew over and waved to the automaton inside the other ship. Now both ships were firing at him, with disastrous results for both of them. Odd flew between them, they fired, missed, and instead blew each other to pieces.

The kids and teachers on the ground looked upward in stunned silence for a while, and then started cheering. Odd landed back on the ground, a big grin on his face.  
"Odd," Said Ulrich, with a smile on his face. "Sometimes I have no idea if you're being really brave or really stupid."  
"Well guys," Said Jeremie, walking up. "It looks like things are all clear here for now. We should go."  
"Go? go where?" Said William.  
"There." Jeremie pointed to the form of Lyoko, floating peacefully in the sky.  
"To the alien home world?" Said William, questioning them.  
"I guess you could call it that. Don't worry. We're going to get the school back to Earth. I don't have time to explain, but trust that we can do it, okay?"  
"Got it."  
"The 'aliens', as you call them, may attack again. Can you defend the school while we're away?"  
"Don't worry. We can handle it." William gave a thumbs up.  
"Alright then. Let's go, guys."

Jeremie and Ulrich hopped onto the overbike, Yumi and Aelita on the overwing, Odd on the overboard, and took off into the sky. Before long they were mere specks against the background of the void, heading fast for Lyoko.  
"So long, and good luck!" Shouted William after them, waving along with the other kids.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Back on Enemy Turf

Jeremie, Aelita, Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi, on the vehicles, were fast approaching Lyoko. The far off four leaf clover shaped world was getting closer, and before long they were able to distinguish features of the landscape, and the many softly glowing blue towers, as well as the red ones, sharply standing out among them. As they approached, the floating blue screens of the void became less distinct, and soon the dark blue of the void was replaced by the light blue of the Lyoko sky. Before long, they were landing on the edge of the forest region.

"Ok." Said Jeremie. "Can you devirtualize me, Ulrich? I'll be more useful back on Earth."  
Ulrich swung his sword at Jeremie, and the next thing he knew, he was stepping out of one of the scanners.  
"Whew! It's good to be back." He said. He took the elevator up to the computer room, seated himself at the computer, and put on the microphone.  
"Jeremie!" Shouted Yumi to the sky. "Are you there? Answer me!"  
"I made the trip safe and sound, guys. I'm localizing the towers now." Jeremie checked the super scan. "The first activated tower is right there in the forest region. 25 degrees north, 50 degrees west."  
"We're on it." Said Yumi. The four of them hopped back on the vehicles and sped off.

"Do you see any monsters?" Jeremie asked.  
"Nah." Said Odd. "They must be all gone, seeing as we destroyed so many of them back at the school."  
"You wish." Said Ulrich. "Look." He pointed ahead. The activated tower was ahead of them, glowing red as always. It was being guarded by four Bloks and a Megatank. But they didn't seem to be alert.  
"They don't seem to be paying much attention to their surroundings." Said Aelita.  
"Perhaps they didn't expect us to escape the school." Ulrich said. "They must be wondering why that sent them to guard this tower, seeing that there was nothing to guard against." He smiled. "Why don't we go over there and give them a little surprise?"

The Bloks stood around, looking around lazily. The Megatank was tightly closed, the eyes on its armor closed in something close to sleep. The laser arrow that seemed to appear out of nowhere and imbed itself in one of the Bloks startled all of them. The Blok blew up, and while its teammates were still looking at the debris in bewilderment, Odd and Yumi charged out of the trees. Odd fired another arrow, and Yumi threw her fans. The other three Bloks, as a result, were as swiftly defeated as the first. The Megatank opened up and fired, but Yumi and Odd dived out of the way before it could hit either of them. Ulrich, who had up to that time been hidden, super-sprinted out of the trees and stabbed the Megatank in the eye before it could close up to defend itself. It blew up.

"Well, that was easy." Said Odd. "You can come out now, Aelita."  
Aelita walked out of the trees and into the tower, levitated up to the top platform, and entered the code.  
"Nice work, guys." Said Jeremie. "Four more to go."  
Aelita came out of the tower and went over to them.  
"We should be more careful from now on." She said. "Xana knows now that we're here on Lyoko, so he's sure to be guarding them more heavily."  
"Right." Said Ulrich. "Jeremie, where's the next tower?"  
"Let me check..." Said Jeremie. "Ok. Mountain Region, 15 degrees south, 18 degrees west."  
"Lets go." Said Ulrich. The four of them went back to where their vehicles were parked, got on, and took off, heading for the passage tower.

Xana was in his control room, looking at a big screen showing what was going on at the school. The kids were barricading themselves inside the buildings, making weapons from silverware, stockpiling rocks to throw and buckets of water to dump on the monsters to short circuit them, etc. Xana smiled a little, seeing their efforts as futile. But his smile quickly turned upside down when he saw a big red exclamation mark appear on the computer screen.

"What?" He shouted at his computer screen. "What is the meaning of this?"  
He started typing on the computer, and the view changed from the school to the forest region, where he saw the kids speeding along on their vehicles.  
"What? They escaped?" He growled to himself. "I don't know how, but this problem must be dealt with immediately. General!"

The Scipizoa drifted into the room and stopped by Xana's side.  
"Notify the monsters guarding the towers that trouble is on the way. From the looks of it, they are currently headed for the Mountain Region. See if you can get any more spare troops to guard the towers, and ready the flying saucers for another assault."  
The Scipizoa bowed and began to leave the room.  
"Oh. And you know what to do with Aelita if you can catch her."  
The Scipizoa signaled assent and left the room, eager to fulfill its master's orders.

It drifted towards the huge garage where the flying saucers were stored, gathering together behind it the monsters it passed. When it entered the room, it ordered the monsters to spring into action, and soon they were pouring into the room and boarding the saucers.  
"As much a I hate to admit it," The Scipizoa thought to itself, "Xana can be a little naive sometimes. If the kids are on Lyoko, the best thing to do is to carry out the rest of the attack as soon as possible."

It stared out at the monsters boarding the UFOs, and then watched them rising into the air and flying out of Sector 5.  
"Two ships was not enough. So lets try fifty."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Into the Mountains 

The three vehicles and their young passengers sped rapidly through the forest, the trees whipping past them at blinding speed. They approached and entered the passage tower without slowing or hesitating in the least, and in a matter of seconds they were flying through Lyoko's cyberstream, numbers flying by them. They came out of the tower in the mountains, and sped for the towers.

"How far is it, Jeremie?" Asked Yumi.  
"Pretty far. Just keep going and you'll be there in a few minutes. Do you see any monsters?"  
"They're probably all waiting for us at the tower." Said Ulrich. "But for now, lets just be glad they're not around."  
"Hey..." Said Odd. "Do you hear something?"

They all stopped their vehicles and listened.  
"Uh.. no." Said Yumi. "Those cat ears of yours can probably hear better than ours, though. What do you hear?"  
"Sort of a... humming."  
"I hear it too." Said Aelita. She scanned their surroundings, and then pointed, eyes wide. "Look!"

Small green pinpoints had appeared in the sky, and were growing fast. Soon features were identifiable, and it was horribly obvious what they were seeing.  
"HIT THE DECK!" Shouted Ulrich. They threw themselves to the ground, just as the green disks screamed through the skies over them like a group of fighter jets. Just as fast as they had appeared, the flying saucers had disappeared over the other horizon.

"Flying saucers." Said Yumi. "They're heading for the school."  
"Which means we have to find the second tower as fast as possible." Said Aelita. "Hey, wait, look! They're coming back!"  
Ten of the fifty UFOs they had seen were approaching again, although not as fast this time. When they were close enough to see clearly, the hatches on the bottom opened up, and the laser cannons extended out.  
"Look out!" Shouted Jeremie. "They're going to attack!"  
"Let's go!" Shouted Ulrich.

They hopped back on the vehicles, and sped off in the direction of the tower, with their pursuers approaching fast. One of the cannons charged up, and fired. Ulrich swerved to the right to avoid it. It missed, but just barely, smashing into the ground next to him. It fired again, and this time Yumi and Aelita were the ones who had to avoid it. Yumi threw her fan and it sliced through the cannon, rendering it useless. But the UFO merely rotated so that one of the other eight was pointing at them.

"Hold on!" Shouted Jeremie. "You're almost at the tower!"  
"Where is it Jeremie?" Shouted Aelita. "All we see is a big mountain!"  
They flew around the mountain, but they saw no tower.  
"Its there. You just have to find it. The activated tower has been hidden before."  
The ten flying saucers started firing again at the kids, and this time they had to be careful about which way they dodged on they would just run into another laser. They were trapped in a deadly rainfall, as the saucers fired again and again.

But then, a misfired laser hit the side of the mountain, blasting a big hole in it. But instead of healing, like the land usually did, the hole stayed there. They could see darkness inside.  
"The mountain! Its hollow!" Shouted Aelita.  
"Quick! Get inside! The flying saucers won't be able to get us in there!"

They flew their vehicles up and into the hole. For a moment they were surrounded by complete darkness. Then, as the supercalculator was programmed to do, the inside lit up so they could see, even though there was no light source.  
The mountain's inside was a giant cavern, with a rocky floor and stalgtites hanging from the ceiling. Against the back wall was the tower, being guarded by five Krabes and a Tarantula.

"We found it, Jeremie." Said Ulrich.  
"Ok. Deal with the guards, and then it's off to the desert. Do it fast, because those flying saucers outside probably aren't going to give up so easily. They may try to blast their way in."

Jeremie was right. Outside, the flying saucers had at first waited for them to come out, but as their pilots became impatient, they started moving around the tower in a circle. Simultaneously, they charged up their lasers, and then fired, hitting the mountain with tons of force and causing the entire landscape to shake with the impact.

Inside, the shaking caused many of the stalactites to break off. One of them fell directly on to a very unfortunate Tarantula, killing it instantly.  
"Well, that's one problem solved." Said Odd. "Five more to go!" He said, indicating the five Krabes with a grin.  
"Yeah, yeah, lets get this over with." Said Ulrich.

They swooped down from the air, closing in on the Krabes. They looked up, then started firing. Odd expertly maneuvered out of the way, and started firing his own weapon, taking down two of the Krabes. Ulrich actually landed the overbike on the third Krabe, stabbed it, and took off before it exploded. Yumi was not so lucky with the monsters she was left to deal with. The first laser hit her off the overwing, then the second hit her as she fell, and it was game over for her.  
This left Aelita with control of the overwing. She flew right over the Krabes and into the tower.

She parked it on the central platform and then rose up to the top. For the second time that day she entered the code, and outside the tower turned from red to blue. Ulrich and Odd dealt the last two Krabes a finishing blow, and then landed in front of the tower.

Meanwhile, Yumi was coming out of the elevator. She walked over to the computer and stood by Jeremie, looking at the screens.  
"Did Aelita make it into the tower?"  
"Yup. She's coming out of it right now. I just hope Odd and Ulrich can hold on for the rest of the towers."  
"Relax. They haven't lost any life points yet."  
"Yes. But we've got a bigger problem."

The flying saucers outside fired again, and sunlight suddenly poured through ten holes in the mountain. They saw one of the dark shapes move slowly past one of them.  
"Jeremie! The mountain can't take much more of this! It'll collapse!"  
"But we can't go back outside!" Said Odd to Aelita. "They'll blast us to bits!"  
"Does that mean... We're trapped?" Said Ulrich, a look of disbelieving on his face.  
"Unfortunately, yes." Said Aelita, looking up at the ceiling of the cavern fearfully.

The UFOs circled around and blasted again, shaking the mountain to its base. There was no way out.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Caving In 

The flying saucers circled the mountain again, and proceeded to blast their cannons against the mountain's decaying sides once more. Inside, Odd, Ulrich, and Aelita looked fearfully up at the walls and ceiling, as the holes in the sides of the mountain got bigger.

"Jeremie, what do we do?" Asked Ulrich. "Come back to Earth?"  
"I don't think that's a good idea." Said Jeremie. "Don't worry. I'll think of something." He typed furiously at the computer, trying to look at the situation from all angles. He found the route they could have entered the mountain with if they had not gone in through the hole the saucer made. But it wasn't going to do them much good now.

He looked at everything inside the mountain to see if there was anything they could use, but there was nothing but the three kids, their vehicles, a whole lot of rocks, and... the tower. Could they take refuge in it? He wondered. He checked some statistics, and it turned out that when the mountain collapsed, the falling rocks would simply crush the tower and anything in it.

Meanwhile, the flying saucers were lining up another attack. They fired, and rocks started falling from the ceiling, smashing to pieces around them.  
Aelita was also wracking her brains for a solution, and while searching her digital memory, she discovered an virtually ancient protocol process for the towers. She turned to it slowly. It was still glowing blue innocently, or as innocently as a weapon of Xana could look. She thought about it a little more, ran the scenario through her head once or twice, and then finally spoke her mind to the others.

"Jeremie... I think I may have found a way out."  
"Well, don't just stand there!" Said Odd. "Tell us what it is!"  
"Well, there are only four passage towers on Lyoko. One in each sector. But there is a code I can use to turn any of Lyoko's neutral towers into a passage tower, at least temporarily. But it takes a very large amount of energy to use. I'm worried that it may crash the tower's program."

Odd, Ulrich, and Aelita looked at each other. The mountain shook again, and this time more rocks fell.  
"We don't have very many other options, Jeremie." Said Ulrich.  
"Ok. Get yourselves and your vehicles into the tower. Aelita can then start up the program."

They went into the tower on their vehicles, and then parked them on the central platform. Aelita walked up to the center of the tower, and floated upwards. She landed on the top platform, and then nearly lost her balance as the tower shook with the direct impact of a very large boulder from the ceiling. She touched her hand to the interface in front of her, and it asked for a code. But instead of typing "Lyoko" she typed the keyword "portal". In a matter of seconds, the screens showing the tower's data started swirling in chaotic patterns around the sides of the tower. They started to fizz in and out of focus, and then for a few seconds the inside walls of the tower faded and fizzed like a broken television set. Outside, the blue glow faded in and out of focus.

"The tower is becoming very unstable, guys!" Shouted Jeremie. "And those flying saucers outside aren't helping!"  
As he spoke, the saucers fired again, and this time the peak of the mountain caved inward and fell with a crash in the center of the cavern. The tower now seemed to be pulsating, its center bending inward and outward.

"Let's go!" Shouted Odd. "Before this crazy place goes completely to pieces!"  
Aelita floated down from the top platform. They all mounted, and then flew over the edge of the platform and into the cyberstream, heading fast for the desert. The opening from the tower closed after them, and the tower's incredible stress was alleviated. If the tower had any feelings, it would have been happy, but not for long, as the flying saucers lined up for one final attack.

They fired, the lasers slammed into the sides of the mountain, and with an incredible groan, the mountain's sides finally caved in. A giant cloud of dust and rock rose from where the mountain once stood, and when it cleared, the pilots of the saucers saw nothing but a giant pile of rubble, the smashed tower somewhere beneath.  
"You dimwits!" Shouted the automaton captain to the crews of the ships. The automatons were the only ones of Xana's monsters who conversed using human speech. "Xana is going to kill us when he finds out about what we did to that tower!"  
"Whatever, dude." Said one of the automatons. "We destroyed them, right?"  
"Ok. fine. Whatever. Lets just go help the other ships in the attack on the school."

The ten ships flew off to catch up with the others, hoping that some of the "fun" would be left for them. They had no idea that the kids had once more slipped out of the monster's grasp. But Xana himself did. He had watched the whole thing on his computer screen.  
"Stupid automatons." He said to himself under his breath. "Two towers down, three to go. And two are in the desert, where they are headed now. Hmmm... then it would be best to concentrate my defense on the last tower, the one in the ice region." He pressed a button on the computer, and began to speak to the Frelion on the other end.

"Listen up, you! It's time to mobilize the troops and prepare them for action. Send the army to the ice region to guard the tower, and make it snappy!"


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Desert Winds 

"Here we are." Said Aelita, as they flew out of the passage tower in the desert after their narrow escape from the hollow mountain. "We made it safe and sound."  
"Ok. There are actually two towers in the desert. They're actually fairly close to one another. 45 degrees north, 15 degrees west, and 45 degrees north, 10 degrees west." Jeremie told them.  
"Then this should be a piece of cake!" Said Odd, doing a backward flip on the overboard. "Let's go!"

As they sped along the plateau, Xana watched them over the screens. He saw them approach a point roughly half way between the two towers, so that they would have to double back when they deactivated the first one. It was the perfect place to set the trap he had planned. Smiling evilly, he typed some codes into the computer, and then pressed the enter key.

"I see the towers!" Shouted Aelita, pointing to one, then the other, on opposite sides of them in the near distance. "And no monsters yet"  
"No monsters..." Said Ulrich. "But what's that?" He pointed into the distance, where they could see a tannish cloud billowing. As they watched, it started getting closer, and before they knew it, the towers, and everything else, for that matter, disappeared into a blinding sandstorm.

"Oh no, I don't believe it!" Shouted Odd, shielding his eyes from the blowing sands. "I can't see anything!"  
"Don't worry!" Said Jeremie. "I'll guide you."  
"Hey, Jeremie," Said Yumi, who was still standing next to him. "Don't make them get too close to any edges. Remember what happened to me the last time Xana made the landscape invisible."  
"I'll try, but the towers are at the ends of narrow bridges. It'll be close."

"Ok. Just keep flying straight. There's no danger of falling yet. You're heading for the left tower."  
They flew as Jeremie directed, which surprised Xana a bit. At first he thought it had just been chance, but when he thought about it a little more he smacked himself in the forehead for forgetting. He typed in some more codes, and sat back with a snicker.

At the factory, the screen with the holomap suddenly went fuzzy. It went in an out of focus a few times before the display went completely blank, being replaced with a red Lyoko eye with the words "HaHa! Losers!" Printed underneath.  
"Huh?" Said Jeremie out loud.  
"Do we change direction now, Jeremie?" Asked Odd.  
"Umm.. I don't know! It looks like Xana corrupted the holomap somehow!"  
"Great. Guess that means we're on our own." Said Ulrich.

They sped onward in what they thought was the right direction, but there was no way to tell for sure. And when they heard the sound of a laser firing in the sky behind them, they knew that their troubles had just begun. Ulrich looked behind him, and just barely saw a dim image of a large buzzing shape through the clouds of dust.  
"Frelions!" Shouted Ulrich to the others. "Watch out!"

The three monsters flew up and around, then came back at them with a new volley of laser fire. Unlike the kids, they could see perfectly through the sandstorm with infrared. Ulrich, Aelita, and Odd dodged blindly, only able to avoid being hit through sheer luck. One of the lasers hit Odd in the arm.  
"Ow! That hurt!" He said.  
"80 life points, Odd." Said Jeremie.  
"Well, what do you want me to do?" There's no way I can hit them thro-"

He was cut off with a sudden vision. He saw Ulrich and Aelita on the overbike, heading straight, then, after 20 seconds, making a hard left to get to the tower. He could see that the sandstorm was still blowing, but it seemed strangely transparent, and he could see everything clearly. With a sudden jolt, it was gone. He turned to see three lasers hit the overwing, causing it to flash and dissapear. Ulrich stopped the overbike.  
"Get on, Aelita!" He shouted through the roar of the winds. Aelita did not hesitate to obey.  
"Ulrich, listen!" Shouted Odd. "I just had a vision! You have to take Aelita straight onwards for 20 seconds, then make a hard left. You'll make it to the towers without running into any obstacles or monsters."  
"But what about you?" Said Ulrich.  
"Well... I wasn't in the vision. I wonder what that means?"

It soon became clear exactly what it meant. One moment, Odd heard a rolling sound behind him, the next, a megatank laser appeared out of nowhere, taking him and the overboard out in one blow.  
"Odd! No!" Shouted Yumi. His card flipped over and disappeared from the screen.  
Ulrich, following Odd's instructions exactly, drove ahead for twenty seconds, and then made a hard left. He saw lasers from the frelions landing around him and Aelita, but none of them hit. They both were startled when the endless blowing sands suddenly gave way to the blue insides of a tower.

"Go on, Aelita." Said Ulrich. "I'll go back outside and deal with our rude guests." Aelita nodded, and walked to the center dot, where she was lifted into the air. Ulrich went back outside, where once again his visibility was reduced to zero. He jumped to the right to avoid a blast from the megatank, which he still couldn't see. Meanwhile, Aelita was landing on the top platform. She entered the code. Outside, the sandstorm stopped instantly. Jeremie's holomap also came back online.

"There you are!" Said Ulrich triumphantly to himself, seeing the three frelions hovering above him and the megatank in front, its metal halves separated to expose its target. It was getting ready to fire.  
"TRIPLICATE!" Ulrich shouted. He and the two clones jumped up into the air, running the three frelions through. He shouted "Fusion!" As he landed, then dashed up and stabbed the megatank, which promptly blew apart.

Jeremie leaned back in his chair, and let out a relieved whistle.  
"Way to go, Ulrich!" Said Yumi into the microphone. Odd was just stepping out of the elevator, and hadn't seen what had just happened.  
"Hey, everything okay?" He asked.  
"We're all set." Said Jeremie. Aelita came out of the tower on the overbike. She gave the driver's seat to Ulrich, and they sped off for the second desert tower.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Vanishing Act 

William stood on the roof of the Science Building, looking off into the void, a pair of binoculars over his eyes. In all directions, he could see nothing except the vast blueness of cyberspace, full of eerie floating light blue screens. He couldn't get used to this crazy alternate dimension, or whatever it was. The only break in the void was the huge four leaf clover shape of the place known as Lyoko, the alien's homeland. Waiting for them to attack again was a very tense activity, as he scanned the empty space for any sign of movement.

The kids and teachers of Kadic had done everything they could to prepare for another attack. They had made weapons, crude weapons, but ones that would prove to be useful nonetheless. All of the people at the school had garrisoned themselves inside the buildings, barricading the doors and windows and making places they could attack the aliens from. People were stationed at all of them, ready for anything. All that there was to do now was wait.

William's eyes narrowed, as he saw several green specks appear in the distance and move towards them.  
"How many do you see?" Asked Sissi, who had come up next to him. "Is there any danger?"  
"Of course. There seem to be... oh no... it can't be."  
"What?" Asked Sissi.  
William watched as more and more specks started to appear. "There are more this time. A lot more. An entire fleet!"

"William..." Said Sissi, her back turned to him, her eyes wide. "I don't think those are the ships to worry about."  
"What do you mean?" Said William, turning around. "What other ships are there to worry-" He stopped short. Not more than fifty meters from where they were standing, a flying saucer was hovering in midair, cannons charged.  
"C'mon!" He shouted, grabbing Sissi by the arm and rushing her down the stairs with him. The flying saucer fired, blowing a hole in the roof. It then flew over the building, so that it was hovering over the soccer field. Three more ships hovered over to join it, and together, they landed, one of them crushing Yumi's house beneath it. It was fortunate that they had thought to take Hiroki into the school with them, or he would have been crushed.

Hatches in the sides of the saucers opened, and the monsters started marching out. They started marching toward the school, charging their lasers. Inside, William was running through the halls, calling to everyone to prepare. He stopped by a classroom where Jim, Mr. Delmas, and Mrs. Hertz were fiddling with a strange electronic device they had made.  
"What are you doing?" He asked.  
"Trying to contact someone!" Said Mrs. Hertz, a little annoyed that they weren't making progress. "If we could just find some help from our world..."  
"Hello?" Said Mr. Delmas into a microphone. "Can anybody hear me?"

In the lab, Jeremie was startled to hear Mr. Delmas' voice coming out of the computer's speakers.  
"Can anybody hear me?" He repeated.  
"Mr. Delmas?" Said Jeremie, confused.  
"Jeremie! Where are you?"  
"I'm on Earth."  
"Earth! How'd you get there?"  
"It's a long story, sir. Don't worry, my friends and I are doing everything we can to bring you all home."  
"Well, whatever you do, it had better be quick, young man. Those accursed UFOs are back, and there are far too many to fight this time. We can barely hold off the aliens attacking the school right now."  
"Ok. Sit tight, and don't give in. We'll do everything we can."

Jeremie cut the connection. "Everything we can. Which isn't much at this point."  
Ulrich and Aelita were hiding behind a large rock in the desert region. The path to the tower was blocked by a solid phalanx of 18 kankrelats, backed up by a very mean-looking tarantula.  
"We don't have Yumi's telekinesis to get us through this time." Said Aelita disappointedly.  
"Ugh." Said Jeremie. "Don't panic, you two. I'm sure there is a way around this." He turned to Yumi and Odd. "The school is being attacked again, and Ulrich and Aelita are trapped in a stalemate with Xana's monsters. Could things get any worse right about now?"

He got his answer in just a few seconds. The non-natural disaster alert system Jeremie had programmed months ago booted up and began to broadcast the latest news.  
"Good afternoon. This is reporter Alice Sherman reporting live from downtown. What began this morning with the local boarding school and a nearby house in the suburbs has recently begun to spread, as street lamps around the city spew out tons of digital black smoke, engulfing entire buildings and then disappearing along with the people inside. Pandemonium has broken out as the city begins to vanish, and the police are having a hard time evacuating the rest of the populace."  
Jeremie buried his face in his hands. "Looks like things can get worse."

On the outskirts of Lyoko, more landmasses started appearing, along with the buildings and people that were on them. Wild screams were breaking out from these buildings, as they floated aimlessly through the emptiness.  
The saucers stayed in the distance, holding off on attacking the new arrivals.  
"Odd." Said Yumi. "We have to go downtown and find someway of stopping Xana from virtualizing any more people, before the entire city is at his mercy in the void!"  
"Got it. Jeremie, stay here and monitor the situation on Lyoko."

The two of them ran to the elevator and got in, rising up to ground level. they ran out of the factory, heading back to where the school used to be. It wasn't long before they witnessed the spectacle that was putting the city into a panic. In the outer suburbs, they saw specters emerge from several street lamps and form a cylinder around a large house. There was a flash of light from inside, and the specters and the house vanished.  
"Looks like Xana is using the specters as gigantic scanners for buildings." Said Odd, breathlessly.  
"Great. Now how do we stop it?" Asked Yumi.

Odd looked around. He was a little surprised to see a car in the middle of the road, its door open and the engine still on. Its owner had recently abandoned it in order to flee the specters. Odd ran over to it and got behind the wheel.  
"Odd! Are you crazy? You don't know how to drive!"  
"It's okay. I intend to crash it anyway."  
He looked around, and saw more specters emerge from another street lamp a few blocks down, which promptly began to engulf another house.

He stomped down on the accelerator, and the car shot forward. It rammed into the lamppost, and it toppled. The specters coming from it pixilated and began to vibrate back and forth in an agitated manner, before fizzing out of existence. The specters that had emerged from other lamps had formed a cylinder around the house, but it was an incomplete cylinder, and when the flash of light came, the specters disappeared, but the house did not, as the "scanner" wasn't closed. Odd gave a thumbs up sign to Yumi.

She ran over to the car and got in the seat next to Odd.  
"Let's go." Said Odd. "There are plenty more specters to bust around here."  
"Are you sure you can handle this thing?" Said Yumi, indicating the car they were in.  
"Of course! I play a lot of racing games on my video game systems."  
Before Yumi could reply to Odd's last statement, they zoomed off, the car swerving this way and that. No policeman was going to stop him for traffic violations or lack of a license for that matter in the current situation.

"I've got an idea." Whispered Ulrich to Aelita. "Follow me."  
The two of them snuck around the rock, keeping out of sight of the monsters. He peeked around the edge. The monsters' eyes were all still fixed on where they thought the two kids were hiding. Ulrich picked up a rock and threw it over their heads, so it clacked against a boulder on their left. Instantly, all the monsters turned to see what had caused the noise.  
"Hold on, Aelita!" He shouted, grabbing a hold of her arm. "Super sprint!"

He dashed out of hiding, holding Aelita by the arm, as he ran forward far faster than any normal human could. The monsters couldn't turn back and fire at him and Aelita fast enough, and in a few seconds the two of them were behind the monsters. They ran for the tower, as the monsters made an about face and started to chase them. Lasers fired after them, but the monsters couldn't go fast enough. Aelita dashed forward into the tower, while Ulrich stopped at it and turned around to face the incoming creatures.

Surveying the situation, he saw that there was little chance of defeating them the usual way. Instead, he sprinted over to a very large boulder perched on its side, held in place by a small stone. He smiled at the monsters for a second, then hacked the small stone out of place, and the boulder toppled on its side, crushing all eighteen kankrelats. It just barely missed the tarantula which turned to Ulrich and started firing angrily. Ulrich blocked the shots with his sword, then sprinted up and stabbed it in the eye. It gave a final screech, then blew up.

Meanwhile, Aelita was inside the tower, deactivating it. Ulrich, Jeremie, and Xana watched as the tower turned from red back to blue.  
"Four down, one left." Sighed Xana to himself. Well, the last tower has a very nasty surprise guarding it. Far nastier than those ten saucers or the sandstorm." He smiled to himself. "Very soon Aelita's memory will be in my clutches!"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: The Last Tower 

Yumi and Odd sped down the streets. The panicking people rushing by paid no attention to them, as they continued bashing the car they were driving into the street lamps the specters were coming out of. When the car they were driving was too damaged to continue moving, they would simply get out and find another abandoned car, which were in plentiful supply.

But for every building they saved from virtualization, four more were being sucked up at once throughout the city, and they passed a large amount of empty lots.  
"Jeremie." Said Yumi, calling him on her cell phone. "Things are getting worse around here. Are Ulrich and Aelita almost done or what?"  
"They're about to-" Yumi heard Jeremie say, before the line went dead.  
"Huh?" She said to herself, as Odd continued to drive like a maniac beside her. "What happened?"

The cell phone was registering "no service". Yumi guessed that the main communications dish for the city had been swept away into cyberspace along with the building it had been attached to.  
Jereime was also puzzled by the sudden disconnection, but he decided he couldn't worry about it now.  
"Ulrich. Aelita. Are you almost there?" He said into the computer.

On Lyoko, Ulrich and Aelita were speeding through the desert on the overbike, heading fast for the passage tower.  
"Hold your horses, Einstein. We need to get to the ice region first. Don't worry, we'll make it"  
"You'd better do it before Xana finishes virtualizing the city, because I'm certain that he will be moving on to the rest of the world from there."

The overbike and its two passengers drove right into the tower, off the edge of the platform, and into the cyberstream once more. They whizzed by the flashing numbers around them for a few seconds before coming up onto the platform of the ice region passage tower. They drove out, and Ulrich stopped the overbike. He scanned the horizon, then listened for a while.  
"Pretty quiet out here, Jeremie." He said. "I almost want to say too quiet. Where's the tower?"  
"Not too far. 35 degrees south, 18 degrees west."  
Ulrich started the overbike up again and they sped off in the direction Jeremie indicated.

The two of them scanned their surroundings warily, looking for any sign of the monsters. They saw none.  
"Jeremie, any sign of danger yet?" Aelita asked.  
"Nope." He said in reply. "No.. wait! There's a kankrelat on the hill in front of you!"  
They looked, and sure enough, the little monster was standing there, watching them. As soon as it saw them, though, it gave a little jump and then scuttled off.  
"That's weird." Said Aelita. "Why do you think it ran away?"  
"To find its buddies, I'll bet." Ulrich said in reply. "Lets follow it. Perhaps it will lead us to the tower."

They followed the kankrelat, which seemed to panic when it saw them coming and scuttle faster. It disappeared into a miniscule hole in an ice-covered rock. The two of them drove around the rock to see the kankrelat standing all on its own in a huge ice field.  
"MUAHAHAHAHA!" Xana laughed to himself. "Now they will know my power!" He pressed a button on his keyboard, then sat back to watch.

On the ice field, Aelita and Ulrich were still scratching their heads when the wire frames started to appear over the field. They rapidly filled with color, and the monsters dropped solidly down to the ground. Aelita gasped as more and more started to appear, and the existing Krabes and kankrelats started to organize themselves. When they were done, on one side of the field stood Aelita and Ulrich on the overbike, while on the other end, standing in front of the activated tower, were four groups of a hundred Krabes each with fifteen rows of kankrelats in front of them. Hundreds and hundreds of evil mechanical eyes turned to look at Ulrich and Aelita, daring them to make a move.

"Two..." said Ulrich, stunned. "Versus two thousand. Not good odds."  
"Has Xana ever materialized so many monsters?" Aelita asked, also stunned.  
Ulrich was silent for a moment more. Then he pulled himself together and said, "Look. We can't possibly beat all of them, but this is just like the last tower we had to deactivate. We just have to find a way around them."

But in the middle of their musings, the monsters decided to stop waiting for them to make a move and instead started firing.  
"Watch out!" Shouted Jeremie, as the lasers headed straight for them. Ulrich reved up the overbike and sped off, lasers thumping on the ground on all sides of them. They retreated to the relative safety behind the rock the first kankrelat had run through.  
"Ok." Said Aelita. "I see what you're saying, and I think I have an idea. I used the same trick to escape from a trap before."

She knelt on the ground, and then started to sing to the land. On command, a long ramp appeared in front of the army Xana had materialized, leading from the rock they were hiding behind. Ulrich, seeing what she was doing, pulled her back up on the bike when she was done, and then sped onto the ramp.

The monsters, seeing them come back, started firing again. Ulrich's driving evaded all the lasers, though, and before the monsters could do anything else, the overbike shot off the edge of the ramp into space. The Krabes and Kankrelats turned to look upward as they flew through the air far above their heads. The ramp had shot them so high they were level with the top of the tower.  
"Ha, see you later, guys!" Shouted Ulrich downwards. "See, Jeremie? Nothing to worry about!"  
"WATCH OUT! THERE'S A TARANTULA ON TOP OF THE TOWER!" Jeremie shouted.  
"Wha?" Ulrich said looking around. Indeed, a tarantula had somehow gotten on top of the tower, and its lasers were charged. It let out a shot from each of its forearms.

"NO!" Jeremie shouted.  
Aelita and Ulrich screamed as the shots hit the overbike. It disapeared from underneath them, and they plummeted, screaming all the way. The Krabes in the back row turned around and started firing at Ulrich's falling form, and he disappeared, all life points gone, before he ever hit the ground. One of the scanners in the factory opened up, and he fell forward flat on his face, out cold.

Aelita fell, and did hit the ground, which hurt a lot, as you can imagine. She struggled to her feet, only to find herself completely surrounded by the monsters, cutting her off from the tower.  
"No!" Shouted Jeremie. "This can't be! AELITA!"  
The monsters parted, letting a very large and triumphant-looking jellyfish-like monster into the circle they held Aelita in. It hovered over her ominously, as she trembled in pure terror.

"No..." Jeremie said, holding his head in his hands. "All is lost."

---------------

Heh heh. That should leave you hanging. Don't worry, things aren't as bad as they seem.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Rescue 

There was a crash, and Yumi and Odd smiled as another lamppost fell down. The specters coming out of it pixilated and disappeared, and then Odd backed up the car and went for another lamppost, where more specters were pouring out.  
"Ha Ha! You picked the wrong day to mess with us, you freaky black clouds!" Odd shouted.

The words seemed to have a curious effect on the specters. Rather than going to embrace the nearest building, they turned to the car Yumi and Odd were in.  
"Uh oh." Said Odd. "What happened? Did I make them mad?"  
The specters signaled that, yes, he had made them mad, by picking up the car and wrenching it in two. The right specter shook the right half of the car, and Yumi and Odd tumbled out onto the pavement. They stared upward at the swirling electronic black clouds.  
"Err... RUN!" Shouted Yumi. Odd did not hesitate to obey, and the two of them got up and ran as fast as they could, the specters still chasing them.

------------------

Ulrich slowly opened one eye. He saw the familiar floor of the scanner room beneath him, and at once realized what had happened. His eyes flew open, and he scrambled to his feet. There was only one thought on his mind.  
"Aelita." He said to himself in a horrified whisper.

He dashed over to the elevator, hurriedly pressing the big red button to make it rise. He watched the scanner room's fancy metal door close, seal, and lock, and then the elevator's regular wooden door fall in front of it, all the while dreading what he would see when he got up to the computer room.

--------------------

Yumi and Odd dashed through the streets. they were empty now, all the people having already fled and all the buildings having already been stolen by the specters. They dared to look behind them for a second, and wished they hadn't. The four specters that had begun chasing them had morphed from simple black clouds of smoke to versions of the monstrous creature Xana had made to attack them when Sissi had tried to summon a ghost from beneath the school. They were coming after them fast, in a motion that can only be described as "flowing". They flowed after them, getting nearer all the time.

"The factory!" Yelled Yumi, indicating the large abandoned building on the riverbank they were coming to. "We must make it to the factory!"  
They ran across the bridge, swung from the cables down to the ground floor, and Odd pressed the button for the elevator. Nothing happened.  
"What's going on?" Yumi said, frustrated. "Is it being used?"  
It was. At that very moment, the elevator dropped Ulrich off in the lab, and it was free to pick up Odd and Yumi.

They could hear the elevator coming up, but they could also see the specters flowing down from the level of the bridge and settle on the factory floor. Odd and Yumi watched them warily. Odd couldn't take the suspense and started pressing the elevator button again and again to see if it would make it rise any faster. The specters rushed at them, and it was that moment that the elevator opened. They rushed inside and shut the door before the specters could get in with them, and the elevator dropped them to the level of the computer room.

When Ulrich stepped out of the elevator, before it went to pick up Odd and Yumi, he walked cautiously over to the computer.  
"Jeremie?" He said.  
Jeremie was sitting at the computer, crying. Ulrich turned around at the sound of the elevator opening.  
"Jeremie! Yumi shouted. "The specters are- What? Ulrich? What are you doing here?"  
Jeremie turned to them, great sadness in his eyes. "Aelita.. Is all alone on Lyoko... With the Scipizoa and Xana's army."

Yumi and Odd gasped. On Lyoko, the Scipizoa was done gloating, and it picked Aelita up and held its tentacles to her head. A screen appeared on the supercomputer's screen, showing the progress the Scipizoa was making. "There's no one who can help her now." Jeremie said sadly. Yumi broke down, sobbing on Ulrich's shoulder. He held her close, while continuing to stare angrily at the screen.  
"A while ago I said things couldn't get worse. I was wrong. Now things can't get any worse." Jeremie said.  
"But things just did, Jeremie." Said Odd. "Look."

On Lyoko, there was a humming noise, and three flying saucers flew up over the edge of the glacier. They hovered up and over the ranks of monsters, casting their humongous shadows over the creatures. But either they didn't notice, or they didn't think the saucers were worth paying attention to. Every single electronic eye was fixed on the Scipizoa and its prisoner.  
"That's funny." Said Xana to himself, a little surprised but not in the least bit suspicious. "I didn't order any saucers to come here."

That was when the hatches on the bottoms of the saucers opened, the cannons came out, and the ships started vaporizing the monsters below.

"WHAT!" Shouted Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi in unison.  
"WHAT!" Shouted Xana, slamming his fists on either side of his keyboard.  
"wwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttttttttttt" The saucers went, as they fired mercilessly down on the unfortunate monsters below. The result was instantaneous and catastrophic. The strictly regimented ranks of monsters broke up into total anarchy and chaos as they tripped over and crushed one another to get out of the way of the deadly blasts from above. A few of the Krabes and Kankrelats started firing upward at the ships, but their lasers bounced uselessly off the UFOs' armor.

"COME IN SAUCERS 62, 63, AND 64!" Shouted Xana, desperately trying to get in contact with the pilots. "DO YOU READ ME! STOP THIS AT ONCE!"  
But the response was nothing like he suspected. The face of a young girl came onto the screen. She stared at Xana for a moment, then stuck out her tongue and put her fingers in her ears and made a "phbtttt" sound before cutting the connection.

The three saucers landed, and twenty of Kadic's students ran out of each of them, wielding crude weapons they had made, yelling and whooping like banshees. They fell upon the remaining monsters, and they were all too dead or too confused to fight back. A rock from a slingshot flew through the air and imbedded itself in the head of the tarantula on top of the tower. It fell off, screaming, hit the side of the tower on the way down, and exploded upon hitting the ground.

Jeremie, Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd watched this scene in stunned silence for a moment, then began cheering and laughing.  
"Well, looks like after all the times we've saved Kadic, they decided to save us for once." Said Odd, smiling.

The Scipizoa, seeing the kids rushing toward it, panicked, released Aelita, and fled before the kids could reach it. Aelita dropped to the ground, unconscious. Milly and Tamiya knelt beside her on the ice, and woke her up.  
"It's Aelita!" Aelita heard her name called by a far off sounding voice. She opened her eyes with a start, and looked up into Milly's face. She got up, looking confusedly around her.  
"Wha..?" She said, looking at the faces around her. "You... you... how did you all get here?"

"Well, when the aliens attacked for the third time, they decided to land their ships on the playing field." William said. "We managed to beat them, just barely, even destroying the aliens inside the saucers themselves. So we decided to come over here and help you. Learning how to fly those things wasn't that hard."  
"But... what about that fleet of saucers we saw heading for the school?"  
William's face suddenly turned grim. "They will be there soon. And there are still many kids at the school, not to mention the people in the other buildings that joined us recently."  
"In that case, there's no time to lose." Said Aelita. She indicated the glowing red tower behind them. "See that tower? I have to go inside it and deactivate it. Its the only way to stop this madness."  
"Then go. Good luck Aelita. Get us home."

Sissi stood with her father inside a classroom in the science building.  
"Do you think that William and the others made it safely to that place?" She asked.  
"We can only hope, Sissi. We can only hope." Mr. Delmas said in reply.  
There was silence for a moment. Then they heard a muffled explosion.  
"What was that?" He said, worriedly.

They ran outside, looked up at the sky, and gasped in horror. The sky was filled with flying saucers, completely surrounding the floating school. Three of them broke off and flew in in manta formation. The cannons of the first one opened up, fired, and blasted a giant hole in the roof of the library. The kids inside ran outside, screaming. The saucers flew up, around, flew at the library, and pulverized the remains.

This was the other saucers' cue to all start firing at once. The kids of Kadic ran around desperately, trying to avoid the total obliteration. The landmass, pushed to its limits and beyond, couldn't take anymore, and it started to break up. It wound up in five large pieces and many smaller ones, with the remains of the school buildings on them. Sissi and Mr. Delmas found themselves on a floating rock no more than twenty feet across with several other students.  
"Oh no..." Said Sissi, looking over the edge, on the verge of tears.

Meanwhile, Aelita had run the length of the rest of the field to the tower. She walked up to the wall, and then through it. Inside she walked over both rings of the Xana eye inside the tower, and they lit up beneath her. On the center dot, she rose up into the air, towards the higher platform with the interface.

One of the flying saucers hovered over and stopped over the little landmass Sissi and the others were stranded on. The hatches opened up, the cannons extended, and one began to charge up. Aelita landed on the platform, extended her hand, and placed it on the interface. The tower verified her identity, and asked for a code. The cannon fired.

Sissi screamed. Aelita entered "Lyoko" into the interface. The laser, as big as her head, stopped just inches from her face.

The screens in the tower started falling downward into the abyss, while Xana sighed at another plan foiled. For a momment there was total darkness in the tower. Then there was a speck of white at the bottom, and the quantum foam generated by the computer rose up to engulf her.

"Return to the past now." Jeremie said, pressing the enter key on his keyboard. The foam rose out of the hole in the floor behind them and expanded, engulfing the factory, then the city, then the entire world in its grasp. There was a rewinding sound, and everything disappeared into whiteness.


	15. Chapter 15

Whew. Last chapter. I hope you enjoyed reading, and thank you to everyone who reviewed.

Chapter 15: The Valiant Ones

Beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep.

Odd put his hand on the alarm clock and pressed the button to make it stop ringing. He rolled out of bed groggily, and decided to go to the bathroom to splash some water on his face, to wake himself up.

He walked to the bathroom, went inside, and turned on the water. He held his hands under the water and splashed some on his face, and after that he felt refreshed. It was then that it all came rushing back to him. He looked around, but the bathroom looked like it always did, without a trace of digital animation. He looked down, and he was discovered he had awoken in his pajamas, not his Lyoko outfit. And there was no trace of his tail.

He rushed back to his dorm, where Ulrich was still sleeping.  
"Ulrich, wake up!" Odd shouted, shaking him.  
Ulrich woke with a start, instinctively reached under the covers, and whipped out a big stick of nothing in Odd's face.  
"Huh?" He said, looking puzzledly at his empty hand. As always though when they woke up, it took a few seconds to remember what had happened before the return trip to the past. It all came back to him in an instant.

The two of them walked over to the window and looked out. The sun was just rising over the horizon into the sky. The real sky, not the endless emptiness of the digital void. There were a few clouds in it. They saw in the distance a road, the same road that had always been there, and beyond that the buildings of the city.

"Looks like we made it back safe and sound." Said Ulrich.  
"Oh, c'mon. You've never doubted that a return to the past will make everything intact again before." Said Odd.  
"Still..." Ulrich said, "We'd better do a head count, just in case."  
"Understood."

The two of them changed quickly and rushed out into the hallway, splitting up. They poked their heads into every dorm room, where the kids of Kadic slept peacefully. They went from room to room, checking, and then met back up at their room.  
"Looks like we don't have any unexplained disappearances." Said Odd.

Yumi, Aelita, Jeremie, Ulrich, and Odd stood together by the vending machines later that day, chatting and watching the other students walk about, enjoying their daily lives.  
"Are you sure no one remembers anything?" Said Yumi. "Because a good deal of them set foot on Lyoko. Does that change anything?"  
"Nope. No need to worry guys." Said Jeremie. "And there were no unexplained disappearances reported on the news, either."  
"That's good." Said Odd.

"It's kind of strange." Said Aelita, watching the kids walk by. "The way they acted during this attack... It seemed different, somehow, from the way they used to act. They seemed so much braver. I wonder if the experiences they've been through are rubbing off on them, even if they can't remember them."  
"Well Aelita, if you're right," Said Jeremie, "It means that the next time Xana attacks, we need not necessarily fight him alone. I am sure that in times of danger, we can count on their help."  
"Yeah." Said Ulrich. "In the meantime, can we just be grateful things are back to normal?"

But before any of them could respond, there was a crash, and out of the trees stomped a gigantic robot, with Xana's eye printed on its chest. It shot lasers from its eyes, which caused flames to leap up from the ground they struck. But the kids in the school yard, rather than running away and screaming in all different directions, ran towards the garden shed, pulled out a long rope, ran back to the robot, and tied its feet together. The robot, seemingly unaware of this, stepped forward and tripped. It landed face flat on the ground and smashed to pieces.

Jeremie and the others just stared at the other kids.  
"Well, what do you know..." Said Odd.  
"Guess you can't be grateful things are back to normal yet, Ulrich." Yumi said with a laugh. "We've got work to do."  
"Why bother?" Said Aelita. "Why not send them? I'm sure they could handle it."  
They all got a good laugh out of that, before taking off for the factory.

THE END


End file.
